Defense: Pgh. physician to waive extradition in slaying

PITTSBURGH (AP) — A defense attorney says a University of Pittsburgh medical researcher plans to waive extradition on charges of having fatally poisoned his neurologist wife with cyanide.

Attorney William Difenderfer says 64-year-old Dr. Robert Ferrante plans to waive extradition at a hearing Monday in West Virginia, where he was taken into custody Thursday night.

Difenderfer told reporters Friday that his client wasn’t trying to flee charges in the death of 41-year-old UPMC neurologist Autumn Marie Klein when he left Florida and began driving north.

He said Ferrante was “on his way to turn himself in.”

Klein died April 20 after suddenly falling ill, and prosecutors say blood tests revealed a lethal level of cyanide. They allege that Ferrante had purchased more than a half-pound of cyanide two days before his wife’s illness.